Medicare: Ryan Hides Behind His Mom
Long ago, after a particularly nasty legislative maneuver, I asked a political boss, “Does your mother know what you do for a living?” He tapped my elbow and smiled. “Politics, kid,” he explained.
Paul Ryan’s mother not only knows but helps him do it. At her Florida retirement village, she is his prop as the VP wannabe who wants to gut the program tells an ogling crowd, “Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma, when we needed it then, and Medicare is there for my mom while she needs that now, and we need to keep that guaranteed.”
His whopper comes in the face of a New York Times editorial charging that Romney and Ryan have “twisted themselves into knots to distance themselves from previous positions, so that voters can no longer believe anything they say. Last week, both insisted that they would save Medicare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program, a bizarre turnaround for supposed fiscal conservatives out to rein in federal spending.
“The likelihood that they would stand by that irresponsible pledge after the election is close to zero.”
Romney and Ryan would give retirees vouchers to buy a private plan or current Medicare. Sounds good, but then Medicare would be left with the sickest patients, driving up premiums and making it unaffordable—-a version of the old saw about freedom of housing, that the poor have the same options as the rich, hotel rooms or sleeping under bridges.
MORE.
Photo: shutterstock.com
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I am at retirement age and, what many of us are asked to do when being reassured that our own benefits will not be cut, is essentially turn our backs on posterity–ignoring the fact that our children and grandchildren will have no such guarantee. I suppose Ryan’s proposals may temporarily save money but, if health care costs grow beyond the rate of inflation the relative value of health care vouchers will continue to drop. This will increase costs paid by those who shop for private health care insurance and, the companies that can meet their needs.Unless the State can dole out the appropriate amounts to keep up with, not only inflation, but health care increases, our children and grandchildren are sunk.
I hate conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but the word is that ALEC has pushed for such privatization for ages along with voter suppression, elimination of the IPA, the destruction of unions and the end of public education. This is all sounding more and more believable!
I meant elimination of the EPA not the IPA. Sorry, and now back to my morning fix of caffeine.